


nothing breaks your stride

by dualce



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dualce/pseuds/dualce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of various Dwalin/Bilbo snippets and drabbles. More info at the beginning of each chapter, and tags will be updated if anything gets explicit. It's a mix of awkward miscommunication and fluff, with the occasional moodier piece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. catalogue the differences

**Author's Note:**

> //squints 
> 
> Basically a remix of the reluctantly-arranged-marriage ‘verse of _hear the noise_ , but this time Dwalin’s not so reluctant!
> 
> Also set pre-BOFA.
> 
> Original + unedited version posted [here](http://confaburation.tumblr.com/post/47406886171/catalogue-the-differences).

“Go,” Thorin said, and he shoved Dwalin towards the hallway leading up to the room. Dwalin looked as if he might argue, but a short word in Khuzdul from Thorin made his face darken and he went with a single, glaring look at Bilbo.

Bilbo let Bofur have his bag, forcing himself to return the kind smile the dwarf gave him, and trailed slowly after Dwalin, looking no higher than his boots as they clomped heavily up the stares.

Dwalin went inside and Bilbo stopped just inside the doorway. He left it open, and Dwalin glanced towards it, but said nothing. He merely settled himself into a bench built into a wall, his thick bulk taking up nearly the whole seat. Bilbo looked around for a chair, but they seemed to be in short supply. There was an empty bed, covered with an ugly cream-colored blanket, but Bilbo immediately ruled that out, averting his eyes. He found one chest, towards the back, and sat down on it before realizing it was across the room from the dwarf. With a small grimace he pulled it further out, so they were at least within normal speaking, rather than shouting, range.

“Let us be honest,” Bilbo said, when it looked like Dwalin would say nothing, and the silence had congealed into a distinctly uncomfortable texture.

“As you wish,” Dwalin said, and he looked at Bilbo with a glower.

Bilbo wet his lips and noticed Dwalin following the swipe of his tongue. It derailed his thoughts for a moment. “Er, ah.” He dropped his head and picked at the fraying edge of his cuff while he regrouped. A peek upwards through the fringe of his hair gave him a view of Dwalin scowling down at the crown of his head, but when Bilbo raised his head more fully the dwarf looked away, arms crossing tightly in front of his chest.

“We don’t have to do this,” Bilbo blurted out, his thumb and forefinger encircling the diameter of his wrist, twisting in a nervous motion, fingers fanning out to catch at the empty air.

“What?” Dwalin’s head jerked back towards him.

“This. Me. Us, this thing,” Bilbo said, words spilling out of his mouth, too nervous to stop himself from chattering.

“Why?”

Bilbo gestured between them. “A hobbit like myself, and you, a dwarf, a – a warrior, you cannot think – ”

“ _I_ cannae think?”

“You cannot possibly imagine this would work!” Bilbo shot back, voice rising.

“We’re bound,” Dwalin said, a thundering rumble in his chest that faded towards confusion.

“That doesn’t mean we _have_ to,” Bilbo said, testily. The dwarves’ words for it – bind, bound, bonded – made it seem like shackles. Bilbo had always thought – less so, lately, as time passed him – that this, this _marriage_ would be more buoyant, like birdsong, like sunrise. Less of a claim and more of a happy agreement!

“ _Have_ to – we’re _bound_!” 

Bilbo kept himself from throwing up his hands and loosing a frustrated yell, but only just. He drew a breath and tried another tactic. “We can say we changed our minds,” he said instead. “You lived a hundred years without me – and I lived fifty! That is a long time, long enough to get set in our ways!”

Dwalin’s mouth worked soundlessly between the black shadows of his beard. “Fifty years,” he said, and the rumble in his voice was gone, leaving only an echo of something that might be called forlorn.

To Bilbo he sounded stupefied at the number, and he flushed. “Well, yes, I realize to dwarves, that may not be much, but rest assured I’m very much middle-aged. And know _my own mind_ ,” he added sternly.

“And still.” Dwalin paused. His eyes never left Bilbo’s face, and Bilbo felt himself grow hot under his gaze. “You don’t want this,” the dwarf said slowly.

“No,” Bilbo said, and at the sudden pinch of Dwalin’s lips, the stiffness setting in his brow, he realized how much he’d misunderstood. “Wait, you _do_?”

Dwalin slammed his feet against the floor as he rose from the bench, and the vibration shivered all the way through the wood and the tough soles of Bilbo’s feet. “Enough. You’ve made yourself clear,” he snarled, and strode towards the door.

“Wait,” Bilbo said. “Wait!” He reached forward before Dwalin was past him and grasped his forearm. Dwalin stopped abruptly, and when he turned his eyes to Bilbo’s, the intensity of his look made Bilbo snatch his hand back as if scalded.

Dwalin breathed heavily through his broken nose, and the scar across his brow stood out, pale across his browned skin. “Are all hobbits so heartless?” he asked, turning to face Bilbo more fully.

Bilbo shivered at the force of his voice and nearly moved a step back. “I beg your pardon? I only meant –”

“For fifty years you lived alone, and for a hundred and sixty I’ve done the same. And you think that is _nothing_? That fifty more is but a chore?”

It was perhaps the longest sentence Bilbo had ever heard the issue forth from Dwalin’s mouth and he rocked back on his heels.

“No – no, I –” Bilbo’s breath came fast, defensive and trembling in the aftershocks of the Dwalin’s words. He found himself speaking of things he would never had mentioned before; the reasons, questions, and excuses that had plagued him spilling out of his mouth until he was nearly hoarse.

“I don’t know how this will work! How I can know what will happen to us? What if neither of us – or one of us doesn’t – what will we do? And if we do live through this? What then? Will you come to the Shire, with its quiet mornings and calm days and plantings and farms and markets? Will you be happy? What about Erebor? Could you leave it? And me, should I leave everything for it?”

“You already have,” Dwalin said, and Bilbo clutched more tightly at his chest. When had his hand found its way there? He unclenched his fingers from his jacket and put his fist into his thigh.

“And what if I don’t?” He said shakily, and forced himself to look at the dwarf.

“Then know that should I live, I will follow you to wherever you call home,” Dwalin said.

“Even the Shire?” Bilbo said stupidly, and Dwalin stared at him for a moment before nodding deeply.

“What about Thorin?”

“What of him?”

“He’s your king,” Bilbo said. He corrected himself. “Friend.”

“Aye. And as my king, we will take Erebor back with him leading the way. And as my friend…” Dwalin looked steadily at Bilbo. “He will let me go where my…husband goes.”

Bilbo bit his lip. He turned around. He could not bear the certainty in Dwalin’s eyes, the conviction that this was the right and true way, and all would work itself out afterwards. Did he not think at all of what could go wrong?

Heavy hands descended on his shoulders, and Dwalin’s voice rumbled behind him. “You think too much.”

“You think too little!” Bilbo snapped, spinning around under his hands to glare up at him.

Dwalin snorted, but said nothing, and his hands slid a little down Bilbo’s shoulders, to cup their angles, and his eyes tracked across Bilbo’s face to his lips. He pulled a little towards himself, and Bilbo dug his heels in, eyes sharpening. 

That seemed to bring the dwarf up short. “May I…” His brow furrowed like he was uncertain how to continue, but Bilbo did not need the words to know what he was asking. Part of him, the proper Baggins part, screamed the time was too soon; the Took in him countered that enough had been wasted. _Fifty years_ , it whispered, and Bilbo had felt every second of it, even if it had been buried deep enough to dull the ache.

He stepped a little closer, and to his surprise Dwalin merely pulled him into an embrace, settling his arms loosely against his back, with room enough for him to wiggle free if he wished it.

He inhaled sharply, startled, and Dwalin slide a soothing hand down his back. Bilbo’s head barely came up to his chin, and his nose was nearly buried in the fur lining the collar of the dwarf’s tunic. Tentatively he lifted his hands and rested them over Dwalin’s belt, and they stayed loosely holding each other, long enough for Bilbo to catalogue the differences between them.


	2. the eyes are blind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First kiss drabble. Originally found [here](http://confaburation.tumblr.com/post/49396166610/dwilbo-i-think-anyways-dwalin-bilbo-drabble).

Dwalin doesn’t confess.

He’s not a dwarf for whom words mean much, anyways, and his reach forward conveys more sentiment than anything he could say. The move is quick enough that Bilbo startles back reflexively before Dwalin’s fingers are on him. He locks every muscle into stillness except for the shaky, traitorous exhale of his breath.

Dwalin’s hand cups his face, pinching at the hair tucked behind his ear and scratching roughly at his bare cheeks.

Bilbo manages to hold his wince. He feels pushed and pulled at opposite ends, lightning fizzling across his body, originating from or drawn to Dwalin’s palm, it’s hard to say. Dwalin’s eyes are unwavering. Yet his hand trembles. It’s an odd combination, one that Bilbo finds himself focusing on, as if his mind can’t fathom what’s actually occurring.

The strange thing is, Bilbo’s seen Dwalin’s hands on a sword, loose but controlled. On an axe, even more so: gripping lightly, surely. Spinning the handle like a child’s toy. Releasing at just the precise moment to allow momentum to carry through a goblin’s chest. Or in calmer times, sturdy on a whetstone, sharpening a blade to a razor’s edge.

Now his fingers fumble, awkward, tree-bark calluses scraping across tender skin.

 _Ah_.

Bilbo catches his grip, maneuvers it to his waist, and keeps it there until Dwalin’s hand clenches. At first too tightly and then gentling as Dwalin’s face nears his, and then Bilbo looses track as the touch of Dwalin’s lips on his override the rest of his senses. When he draws back, moments or hours later, Dwalin’s hands have traveled, restless and searching, and Bilbo thinks dizzily that his body will soon be mapped like the contours of an axe handle, and Dwalin will hold him as surely and absolutely.


	3. the sense is balanced with the sound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Established relationship snippet. I hope to have more on this particular story, but it doesn't seem to want to come together.
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://confaburation.tumblr.com/post/61810502299/dwalin-bilbo-established-relationship-this-is).

Dwalin proves insatiable. Every night, without fail, Bilbo is taken to bed, even awoken the few times he manages to fall asleep before Dwalin returns. At first – and, for the most part, still – Bilbo is happy to receive pleasure and give it in return, submitting to desire and affection he never knew he’d missed, leaving him breathless and satisfyingly sore. He is a cup, filled to the brim, ever full and constantly refreshed, like a spring bubbling from a deep well within the earth.

Even when Dwalin comes back from patrols or meetings in such a state of exhaustion that he can barely keep his eyes open, still he lays his hands upon Bilbo’s fastenings, twisting them apart, though those nights are usually quick and to the point.

This evening, after what Bilbo knows has been a particularly long day for the dwarf, filled with argumentative committees and a surprise attack on the shared Erebor/Laketown land, Dwalin comes in to unlace his boots and climb unsteadily into bed, hands questing down the ties of Bilbo’s nightshirt.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Bilbo bats away Dwalin’s hands impatiently, ignoring Dwalin’s growl.

“Stop it, you’re exhausted!” Bilbo scolds, and when Dwalin seems intent on relieving him of his clothing he forcibly folds the dwarf’s larger hands into his chest and shifts closer to pet his beard. Maybe if Bilbo treats him like a small (albeit terrifyingly huge) baby, Dwalin will go to sleep.

Dwalin gives up with the ghost of a sigh and submits to Bilbo’s petting, curling his head a little closer until their brows bump.

Bilbo is fingering the coarse hair when he remembers a past conversation, and speaks hesitantly. “Shall I put a plait in?”

He expects Dwalin to resist – why, he doesn’t know. But Dwalin makes a little sound instead, something new that Bilbo can’t quite place, and nods at a spot over Bilbo’s head.

“Top drawer, box innit,” he says, and Bilbo gets up to retrieve a little box from the heavy desk in the corner. He lifts the lid until the chamber is exposed. There are several beads nestled in the cloth, two large ones that bear Dwalin’s crest, ever-green and a dark gray, nearly black. Beside them are two plain ones, colored light green and honey-gold.

“Didn’t know if you had a crest.” Dwalin’s voice floats over from the bed.

Bilbo shoots a startled look over but cannot see anything beyond the lump of Dwalin’s form, dim and shapeless in the lamplight. He carries the box over to the bed.

“No crests for hobbits,” he says as he crawls back in. “Although some families claimed flower breeds,” Bilbo muses, thinking back to his mother’s stories as he plucks one of Dwalin’s beads from the box. “But that was a long time past. It’s a rarity, now.”

“What’s yours?”

Bilbo sets the box between them. “Heather. I think,” he says, although as he says it he knows it to be true. He’d seen it etched on the frame around his father’s portrait, and sewn into the doilies that laid on the cluttered shelves. But it seemed ill fitting – symbolizing something that didn’t quite suit the Baggins name, now.

Dwalin’s great hand pulls him back down to lay beside him, and he takes the bead. “I’ll have new ones made,” he grunts as his hands work, busy behind Bilbo’s left ear. Surprisingly for their size, Dwalin’s bead is light, enough to bend his hair down but not a nuisance, settling comfortably against his neck.

“For most you’d put it in the beard.” Dwalin shrugs, leaving the rest unsaid.

“Here?” Bilbo reaches out, touching the hair along Dwalin’s jar, below his left ear.

Dwalin nods, and Bilbo works a plait from just that spot, until he reaches the end of the length of hair.

“Use yer bead. Says we’re married,” Dwalin says, and it makes sense to trade beads in that case, Bilbo thinks, clumsily knotting the bead into the end.

He wonders at how long this had been coming, how long the beads had lain in their box. They’d exchanged rings as was Shire custom, but alone, and Bilbo reckoned that Dwalin hadn’t grasped the significance. But he’d worn the ring on his smallest finger – the only one it’d fit on – never taking it off as far as Bilbo could tell.

He tugged at the new plait, and Dwalin shifted closer in response until Bilbo had to rid the box between them to avoid unpleasant sharp edges poking him.

Dwalin’s eyes had closed as Bilbo worked on his beard, and his breath began to whistle as Bilbo rolled back into his arms.

“And the other two?” He asked about the second set of beads, but Dwalin was already asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *heather symbolizes solitude


	4. metal and stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://confaburation.tumblr.com/post/83786457297/im-trying-so-hard-to-get-back-to-writing-and-not).
> 
> This is post BOFA, so there's a single, brief mention of character death. I'm sure you can figure out who it is. :/

Once during their courtship, Bilbo had the stray thought that Dwalin wasn’t like any other dwarves; he showed no interest in gold, or jewels, and the only fine things he appreciated were the heft of an axe and the thickness of a bracer. Bilbo had seen him sneer directly in the face of an armorer trying to sell him chainmail, and insult a smith who Gloin later off-handedly mentioned was the one of finest in the city.

 

When they walked through Laketown during the market, Bilbo didn’t even have to worry about the possessiveness that plagued all dwarves; he was jostled, knocked about, picked up, patted down, relieved of his pocketbook, had his pocketbook reluctantly returned a street later, to his surprise, all with Dwalin only glaring from a distance, and barking at Bilbo not to fall behind. Eventually Bilbo learned to grasp onto Dwalin’s belt and let himself be towed along in the empty wake where the going was much easier. Yet ne’er the once did Dwalin toss a Man across the room for an errant look at Bilbo, or even when another dwarf showed interest, rare as those occurrences were.

 

But then Bilbo would come upon him at a tavern, bellowing in laugher at a dirty joke and tossing food at one of the Company. The worst was when he’d had too much drink, and walked Bilbo back to his room ostensibly under the guise of propriety, when really all he wanted was a snog and to get his huge hands down Bilbo’s trousers.

 

No, no. The worst were the parleys with the Elves, for Bilbo nearly always had to be there to mediate, for both Thranduil liked him and the Company did too. It did not take long for Dwalin’s hatred of the Elves to overcome his sensibility, and the great heaving of his shoulders and flaring of his nostrils did not go unnoticed by the Woodland King. It started with a small smile in Bilbo’s direction and erupted from there, and then Bilbo had to _ban_ Dwalin from the chambers, and that battle took on as nearly legendary proportions as the retaking of Erebor.

 

“He looked at you,” Dwalin roared at the height of the argument, while Bilbo pressed his hand fruitlessly against his mouth to stop from shaking. He spent the rest of the evening calming the heat of his fury with breaths of cold mountain air on the balcony while Dwalin disappeared to spend _his_ fury at the tavern or Balin’s or Nori’s or wherever Bilbo wasn’t, he supposed.

 

He returned from the morning, the heavy thud of his fists on the door jerking Bilbo from sleep.

 

He looked – the same, for dwarves hardly showed wear, but Bilbo could read his unhappiness in the lines of his forehead, and the downward turn of his mouth.

 

Bilbo made to go to the sitting room, but Dwalin caught him by the shoulder, and slide his fingers along the ridge of his shoulder until they rested in the tangle of hair at his nape.

 

“I don’t understand,” Dwalin said heavily, and Bilbo construed the message that rested between the lines, what he truly meant: he could not understand Bilbo’s interest and tolerance of Elves.

 

How he could learn to love an outsider, a hobbit, and an odd one at that, Bilbo wondered, yet could not rebuild such an essential bridge? How could he endure the death of a king and a friend, yet remain unmoved by the freely given aid and suffering and losses of others?

 

“I know,” Bilbo said, and slid his fingers across the swell of Dwalin’s thumb. One or both of them moved forward, and they sank into each other like stones through a stream. Bilbo tasted the tang of metal on Dwalin’s lips, and knew he had been at the training grounds sweating out his anger.

 

“Promise,” Dwalin said roughly, and Bilbo shut his eyes tightly, afraid to see, but Dwalin never clarified what the promise was.


	5. assumptions of interest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might get whiplash from the mood of this piece versus the last one. Much lighter and sillier. Also a courtship piece (that must be my thing), also post BOFA kinda sorta - Bilbo is still in the area of Erebor/Laketown.
> 
> (I really need to just sit down and write a full-fledged fic with these two, gah.)

Bilbo muttered under his breath and wove the fingers of his right hand through his left as he traced the path between his door and his kitchen in a halting gait. His mind followed likewise, going round and round the events of last night; a sudden proclamation followed by silence that had been overwhelmed by a roar of laughter and then fallen into hushed anticipation, and his stuttering response, until he had thoroughly berated himself for accepting and mentally scolded the dwarf in turn for giving him little choice in front of his friends.

 

As soon as – as soon as Dwalin arrived, Bilbo promised himself, he’d set the dwarf straight, both in propriety and in, er, assumptions of interest. Which he had none. Not like that! He counted the dwarf amongst his friends, or at least _he_ would say so, though clearly Dwalin presumed differently. Dwalin was a fine dwarf, surely. Probably. Likely, Bilbo could almost say for certain, though what he knew of dwarves was definitely not normal in _any_ circumstances.

 

He frowned, and nibbled his thumbnail, and shook his head. What he really must say was _thank you_ , _but_ _no thank you_ , very firmly, and not with subtlety, for he feared the dwarf might not recognize the distinction.

 

The door rang with the song of Dwalin’s fists, a shuddering boom that took Bilbo off guard (for all that he expected it) and he tripped backwards a step before he forced himself forward and unlocked the door without stopping to let himself think.

 

Dwalin was as intimidating now as he was a year ago, when Bilbo had opened the door in Bag-End to see shoulders the size of boulders and hair like a thicket of wild rosehips.

 

“Morning,” Bilbo said, and then shook himself sharply. “Evening! Evening, I. Know. What time of day it is. Yes.”

 

Dwalin frowned, or perhaps he was already frowning; it was difficult to tell when he almost always wore the same expression. Bilbo went on studying his countenance, trying to tell if the line on his forehead was deeper, and if so, if it was because of anger, or impatience, or if the tavern had run out of his favorite ale. Dwalin _did_ frown, then, so his eyes narrowed into slits, and Bilbo jolted in place as he realized he’d let the silence go on too long. “Come in,” he said hurriedly, and shook his head again at his nervousness, which was making him most rude. He backed up as Dwalin made his way in, and shut the door behind the dwarf.

 

“What’s that,” Dwalin barked, freezing in the entry, and Bilbo half-turned and leaned around Dwalin to see Milo perched on the windowsill, eyeballing the dwarf.

 

“That would be the cat,” Bilbo said.

 

“You have a cat,” Dwalin said lowly, and Bilbo frowned, not parsing Dwalin’s tone.

 

“It’s not mine,” Bilbo said. He looked at Dwalin, then the cat, then back to Dwalin.

 

“It’s in your house.”

 

“Well,” Bilbo said, wondering if he was missing something, besides the common sense that should have kept him at home, and not wandering across Middle Earth with a ragged group of dwarves and one very meddlesome wizard. Too late for that, now. “It was here when I moved in.”

 

Milo – the cat hadn’t a name; Bilbo had inquired, and then decided Milo was a good, nearly hobbit-y name. Milo had merely blinked lazily when Bilbo tested it out (which was as good as an answer for a cat) – but had yet to close his eyes since he had made eye contact with Dwalin.

 

“Why’s it still here?” Suspicion in Dwalin ran deep, though Bilbo was used to Dwalin holding anyone firmly not a dwarf in that regard (and sometimes that included dwarves not from Erebor, or dwarves not from certain select parts of Erebor, or dwarves who simply looked dubious, or looked at _him_ strangely. Not looking strangely at Bilbo – who was strange in these parts anyways – but at Dwalin himself).

 

“I would think because it lives here.” Bilbo waited for another comment, but none were forthcoming. He cleared his throat; the staring match was rather intense. “Would you like to sit down?” Bilbo went and stood behind one of his chairs, indicating just the spot for Dwalin, coincidentally next to Milo’s window.

 

Dwalin moved slowly, not breaking eye contact with Milo until he was seated. “I don’t like cats,” he muttered.

 

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” Bilbo said. Dwalin turned his glare onto him and Bilbo smiled, overly sweet. Faintly, Dwalin’s eyes softened, and _this_ was far too easy for Bilbo to read. Right, the courtship. So loudly announced, now happening. Or about to happen!

 

“Er, you see, about that question you asked.” Bilbo’s fingers were twisting back and forth again, but he didn’t notice until Dwalin looked down at then, and then he clenched his right hand with his left into stillness.

 

“I, um.” Dwalin’s eyes flicked back up and bored into his own. “Do you want some tea?” Bilbo was already getting up, chair legs scraping across the floor rather loudly. “Be right back! Don’t, ah, start anything.” He paused just long enough to wave a hand between the two, the cat and the dwarf.

 

“You're a fool, Bilbo Baggins,” he muttered to himself when he was alone in the other room, and shoved a nervous hand through his curls. Dwalin was a warrior, was fully capable of taking a – a politely worded yet firm rebuff. Not that Bilbo was going to abuse him! Just _dis_ abuse him of this notion that he was ever interested in courtship. He lit the cooker with a match and went to fill up the kettle with some water. Once it was filled, he turned, saw Dwalin looming in the doorway near him, and yelped, shaking the kettle enough to slosh water down the sides.

 

“I don’t want tea,” Dwalin rumbled.

 

“Alright,” Bilbo said dumbly. “I do.” He swallowed, his eyes darting around, taking in Dwalin’s thick shoulders and fur coverlet and the chainmail he still wore, belted with a thick rope that held several daggers and knives and sharp things that Bilbo couldn’t even begin to use. Maybe to cut up vegetables in the kitchen.

 

Dwalin began to nod, and turn around. Then he abruptly stopped himself, and turned back to scowl at Bilbo.

 

“I wanted food.”

 

If Bilbo was surprised, it was very short lived, and overtaken very quickly by annoyance, followed by another wave of annoyance at himself for even being surprised. Very few dwarves were proper; most were on the wrong side of rudeness, and Dwalin was no different. “I’m really not prepared – ” Bilbo started an apology, gripping the kettle with both hands. Halfway through his sentence his eyes had caught the basket sitting innocently on the counter.

 

Dwalin was looking at him expectantly, and Bilbo cocked his head to the side, lips forming words before his mind could catch up. “For a big meal, but if you give me a moment I can put together some sandwiches.” Oh, for heavens sake! Bilbo closed his eyes and sighed.

 

“I’m buying.”

 

“Pardon?” Bilbo blinked his eyes open, leaning back to focus on Dwalin, who stomped forward to take the kettle out of his hands and put it back on the cooker, smothering the flames at the same time.

 

“Are ye hard of hearing?” Dwalin glared at him over his shoulder. “Said ‘m buying. So come on.”

 

It took another moment to process the peculiar question – invitation? – or whatever it was. Bilbo could be forgiven, he was on the wrong side of Middle Earth and hadn’t yet recovered from being dragged about other's adventures. “No, no no _no_ ,” Bilbo said, hastening after the dwarf, who apparently was equally as hard of hearing. Milo startled at the window at the commotion; Bilbo barely noticed him but Dwalin glowered fiercely in his direction. “I haven’t even! I haven’t said – ”

 

Dwalin opened the door, and laid one hand on Bilbo’s shoulder to helpfully propel him outside.

 

“Key?”

 

Bilbo patted his pockets automatically, finding the lump of his housekey outlined in the depths of his pocket. “Yes, of course. Wait – ”

 

The door thumped shut.

 

“I was _saying_ ,” Bilbo protested.

 

“Ya can say it over dinner.” Dwalin had his hand on his shoulder and was moving him along, although Bilbo’s disloyal feet seemed to be doing quite a bit of the work.

 


End file.
